Mayor Eric Garcetti makes LA’s 2024 Olympics case in Switzerland

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Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino, left, Mayor Eric Garcetti and Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson celebrate the Sept. 1, 2015, City Council vote that cleared the way Tuesday for Garcetti to strike agreements for a 2024 Olympics bid. The mayor is now in Switzerland to meet with the International Olympic Committee. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

LOS ANGELES — A U.S. delegation including Mayor Eric Garcetti met with International Olympic Committee members for around an hour in Switzerland today, pitching Los Angeles as a candidate to host the 2024 summer Olympics, and received what Garcetti called an “enthusiastic” response from IOC President Thomas Bach.

The American delegation consisted of Garcetti, U.S. Olympic Committee Chairman and International Olympic Committee member Larry Probst, USOC CEO Scott Blackmun and LA 2024 Chairman Casey Wasserman. They met in Lausanne with IOC President Thomas Bach to discuss Los Angeles’ bid to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Los Angeles is the city the USOC chose to pitch from the United States after its initial choice, Boston, bowed out, fearing excessive financial liability.

“We began with a wonderful, private, 30 minute meeting with IOC President Thomas Bach and received an enthusiastic response from him regarding our plan,” Garcetti said in a teleconference with reporters in the United States. The team, he said, then held a more detailed meeting, also lasting with 30 minutes, with the IOC Committee.

Garcetti said the U.S. team stressed at the meetings in Lausanne that the Olympic Committee and Olympic movement would benefit greatly from involvement with Los Angeles.

“Every language is spoken here so athletes from every nation can feel very much at home here,” he said, adding that in preparing for today’s presentation, the L.A. 2024 team spearheading the Los Angeles campaign had managed to do “about a year’s work in just a couple of weeks.”

Garcetti said “transparency and disclosure” were key to getting and keeping public support in Los Angeles for the games.

“I am certainly not going to support anything that would hurt my city,” he said. “So we have to make sure that everything is transparent to the residents about this bid, and we have to have back up plans in place to insure that everything goes smoothly.”

Wasserman of LA 2024 was upbeat about today’s talks.

“We had a very productive meeting today with IOC President Bach,” he said in a statement. “As this will be the first full Olympic bid campaign conducted under the new Agenda 2020 guidelines, we look forward to showing how a Los Angeles Olympic and Paralympic Games can produce tremendous benefits for our city, leave a fully sustainable legacy for our residents and elevate the Olympic Movement around the world.”

Probst added that the Los Angeles bid enjoys the full support of the USOC , plus “our athletes, national, state and regional leaders — and the Los Angeles City Council and residents.”

President Barack Obama is enthusiastic and strongly supportive of Los Angeles’ bid to host the 2024 Olympics, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday as the L.A. delegation headed to Lausanne.

“The city of Los Angeles knows what an undertaking hosting these games would be,” Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Dillingham, Alaska.

“They’ve got substantial infrastructure already in place. And let’s face it, there’s a lot that the city of Los Angeles can uniquely deliver to hosting a successful and truly memorable Olympic Games, featuring the best athletes in the world.

“This is a longer process that won’t be determined until sometime in 2017, but obviously the president and the first lady are very enthusiastic and strongly supportive of the bid put forward by the city of Los Angeles.”

Obama attended the 2009 International Olympic Committee meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, where the site of the 2016 Olympics was decided. Despite Obama’s presence, his adopted hometown of Chicago finished last in voting in the first round and was eliminated from further consideration. Rio de Janeiro was selected as the site of the 2016 Games.

The U.S. Olympic Committee selected Los Angeles Tuesday as the nation’s candidate to bid for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, about an hour after the Los Angeles City Council voted 15-0 to back the bid.

Boston was the USOC’s initial choice as the U.S. candidate but backed out over concerns about financial liability. Los Angeles had failed in its attempts in both of the most recent previous attempts to be the U.S. candidate.

But now, Los Angeles — the site of the 1932 and 1984 games — is looking to join London as the only cities to host the Summer Olympics three times. The Summer Olympics were last held in the United States in 1996, when Atlanta was the site.

Garcetti in recent weeks has pointed to Los Angeles’ existing sports venues and other amenities, some of which are already being upgraded, as reasons his city would be a good choice.

Blackmun seized on that idea Tuesday, saying the IOC “is looking to partner with cities to create a new hosting model, a model that sheds excessive spending, using existing venues and builds as little as necessary.”

Los Angeles City Council members agreed to back the bid Tuesday only after city attorneys assured them the city will not be making any immediate financial commitments.

Chief Administrative Analyst Sharon Tso said the city will still have an opportunity to weigh in on the proposed budget of the Games, and any plans for venues or use of city facilities.

Council President Herb Wesson described the decision as “the engagement, not the wedding.” He compared the next few weeks of negotiating the details of agreements with LA24 and the USOC to the “pre-nup stage.”

Some city officials and residents have urged caution in pursuing the bid, saying the city could be on the hook for cost overruns incurred by hosting the Olympics, which may cost more to run than estimates by boosters.

LA24 officials estimate the cost for hosting the 2024 Olympics in Los Angeles would be $4.1 billion, or $4.6 billion when a roughly $400 million contingency fund and insurance are included. They project revenue from the Games will bring in $4.8 billion, resulting in a profit of $161 million going to LA24.

The budget anticipates the IOC will contribute $1.5 billion, or 31 percent of the revenue, with domestic sponsorships and ticket revenue making up the other two-thirds.

The bid packet also included details about how the Olympics might be operated. The Olympic Village would be next to the Los Angeles River in Lincoln Heights — in a Union Pacific rail yard known as the “Piggyback Yard” — and calls for track-and-field and the opening and closing ceremonies to be held at a renovated Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.